


Fulfillment

by lysiabeth



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:25:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysiabeth/pseuds/lysiabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wonders if this is what regret feels like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fulfillment

**Author's Note:**

> This honestly started as my English creative writing and now???? Here is some clintasha???? Amazing  
> Un-beta'd, so any mistakes are mine

When they catch her it’s gritty and painful, and she finds herself being dragged through clean hallways with a bullet in her thigh and more of her own blood spilt over her clothes than anyone elses. She makes no sound as they push her into the chair in front of the steel table, and she thinks “If this is how I go, then it can’t be so bad.” A man and a woman walk into the room then, each with clipboards of their own, and she pulls her back straight, her lips stretching into a predatory smile, ready for the game. It isn’t until they leave when she realises she was never there to win.

-

Her first kill with her knew organisation is in the heat of Majorca, panting and covered in dirt and sweat. Her partner comes up beside her and sighs, before picking up the dead mans feet and helping her carry it to the canal a few blocks over. He teases her for a while before realising she has no care for it, and then his face is stoic as they make their way to the safe house, blending in to the crowd, passing as an average couple. She’s never had anyone help her clean up before.

-

When Winter returns she tastes bile on her tongue, but stays covering her engineer as the bullet chews through her own flesh into his. She watches as he disappears over the cliff edge, gone again like before and when she returns home she stitches up her own wounds, her teeth clenched at the pull of her sloppy needle work, and forces herself to shower. She realises then what love is, and decides she doesn’t want a part of it.

-

When she meets the rest of the team she studies them, as she would with any mark, and notes how similar they all are. “We’re a time bomb.” Banner comments, and she has the mind to look away before she makes the mistake of agreeing. She learns then that the copper taste in her mouth is cowardice, and has to drink two bottles of water before it goes away.

-

When she fights Clint, it’s hard for her to separate feelings from the necessary. When his head smacks against the metal she almost winces, the clanging sound ringing through her ears, feeling the vibrations in her legs. “Tash?” He asks, dazed and vulnerable. She knocks him out in spite of him making her contradict herself, and as she watches the medics carry him away, she ponders the feeling in her stomach. She wonders if this is what regret feels like.

-

Seeing Winter again is like a knife to the throat, only more painful, and more disruptive. She swallows her own sorrows upon seeing Roger’s demeanor, and when asked about it later she covers her hair with her face and hunches her shoulders. Wilson doesn’t comment, but she suspects he knows something is up, and she doesn't know why she lets him speculate. For as strong as she is for living with her demons, she knew she’d never be strong enough to let them go.

-

Seducing Banner is second nature to her. Comments and smirks roll easily over the weeks they’re working, and she pushes away the doubt that slowly starts to creep up on her. It’s the moment that she spies Clint’s gaze one night they’re all together, and it causes her stomach to turn to ice. She can’t look at him for the remainder of evening, and when she goes to bed each nerve ending screams with betrayal.

-

Disappearing had always been easy, but he always had a knack for finding her anyways. She lets Clint into her small house with a sigh and folded arms, and waits for him to say something as they stand at her bench. He lifts his hand and places it on her cheek, and she finds herself craving the touch, the knowledge that being in his arms ensures safety. It scares her, as she falls asleep on his chest. “Love is for children.” She thought. It dawns on her she never had much of a chance for childhood.

-

The ghost returns but he isn’t really a ghost, with memories as jumbled as her own and a smirk Natasha remembers from her days as Natalia. “He asks for you.” The other agents tell her, while she stands against the two way mirror looking into his room. “I’m not interested.” She tells them, a half lie, and refuses to look at Rogers pained expression when they pass each other in the halls.

-

Life is normal, an equilibrium she hasn’t experienced for a while. Her legs are tucked up under the mutt she found herself agreeing to adopt, and the miserable Autumn rain pounds against the window panes. Clint is away on a mission, scurrying around with his new protégé, and Natasha feels something like loneliness when she gets into bed without him. She doesn’t think anything of it when her phone rings a few hours later. She supposes it should have been expected.

-

Natasha stands over a hospital bed, and Bishop is there in the corner, bruises and plaster covering various limbs, and a wobbly lip whenever she speaks. “I tried to help him—I.” She finishes, her throat closing up, and Natasha nods in understanding and looks down at Clint again. She’s already making up a new survival plan if he doesn’t make it through the night.

-

James finds her later, holds her hand in his, and Natasha lets the silence wash over them, too many unsaid words that have to wait for a time that will accommodate for it all. “He’ll survive.” James tells her, looking up at the passing nurses in the hospital hall, and Natasha isn’t in the mood to comment, so instead curls in closer to him, seeking comfort from the warmth of his body, like all those years before. But his metal arm isn't the same as Clint’s scarred and calloused ones, and it makes her head spin with a feeling she can't quite describe.

-

She’s selfish, she knows, when she brings Clint home to her apartment before he gets the chance to talk to anyone else, but he doesn’t seem to mind when she curls up against him in bed, and drags her fingers across the bandages over his chest. “Moy lyubovnik.” She whispers, when she thinks he is asleep, and she isn’t scared anymore, not around him.

-

“I love you.” He tells her finally, as if she doesn’t already know. The two of them are bloody and dirty, waiting for evacuation, and Natasha brings up her bandaged arm to wrap around his body, and tuck her head under his chin. He sighs into her hair and she squeezes his thigh, and she thinks: “This is the man I’ve chosen.” For the first time in her life, she sees no problem. For the first time in her life, looking over the slowly darkening city of Zagreb, she feels content. It’s fulfilling.


End file.
